My Uncle Dave

I found these two pages I had written back during Kaleidoscope and I wondered what day that was, then I remembered. It was the day I found out my Uncle Dave had died.

The pages:
This morning as usual I woke up around six something. I pushed off my purple silk comforter and stuck one leg out from under the sheet. I thought about the dreams I'd had. First the one where my mother was driving and clearly senility was setting in. I placed my hands on her face, trying to get her to see. Then in another dream my daughter was a little girl again in pink slippers going into a store. Later in the dream I saw an old boyfriend and I tried to avoid him but he recognized me after all these years.

Waking up I thought about him and wondered what had ever happened to him. Then I pushed the thought away because I would never know. Odd, how many people disappear forever from your life. I began to pray, to thank the Divine for a good day, to affirm that I would be kind and gentle in my interactions today. That it would be a smooth and satisfying day. I spoke my desires to that light that sometimes occupies my head.

Outside my room I could hear the noise of my husband building something. I pushed the sheets off and stood up. The first thing I needed to do was send an invoice to the magazine I sometimes write for. I did so. Always a gratifying moment when a bill is sent out for services rendered. To me, making a living as a writer is the very best thing I could imagine. The cat sat on my lap purring madly and the dog came in to get his scroungy head scratched. Time for blackberry picking and breakfast. Then the phone rang. And it wasn't even yet 7:15, and I knew it might not be good news.

The New Buffalo Slaughterers

You know, someday people are going to look back at our particular era and wonder just what the heck were we thinking. I take my daughter to school in the mornings and I'm surrounded by gigantic Tyrannosaurus Rex Vehicles. I pull into the school drive and am nearly run down by a blond woman in a Hummer. A Hummer! We're sucking up oil from the planet and spewing out filth that eats at the ozone layer, but hey, someone told us we were cool in our Hummers so who cares about the planet? It's just like those white guys on the trains in the old west. Why shoot just one buffalo when you can shoot one thousand? Or the fashionable women in the early 20th century sporting the feathers of birds that were made extinct by their vanity.
I guess the writer of Ecclesiastes was right--all is vanity and we are doomed.

I suppose if I were a good environmentalist I wouldn't drive a car at all. That's not a bad plan. I think I'll eventually figure out how to do that. In the meatime I'll just be out there waiting for the day people realize that a Hummer is one of the ugliest cars on the face of the earth.

My Father's Death

On Tuesday morning Sept. 6 my father died of heart failure. He was 88 years old and had had dementia for several years. We were not close. When I was a child, he did not visit me or remember my birthday or call me. He did not do these things when I was an adult either, though I visited him occasionally over the years. During my teens, there were a few sporadic attempts to establish a relationship and I can't say they were completely unsuccessful. In spite of all this, I believe that he loved me. And I loved him, too. I cried when my brother called to say that he was dead. I had lost my daddy, and it broke my heart.
Three years ago I saw him was at the beach condo where he lived with his beloved wife. They had been together for around 30 years. I was with my daughter and he had to be reminded a couple of times who we were. A clock that said the time in a woman's voice seemed to comfort him. He was still great at spelling! As we were leaving, he said, "Love you." Surprised, I said, "We love you, too."
That was the last time I saw him and I'm glad that's my last memory of him.